This theme will remain open until October 16th or 17th. Please remember to include the option number, your name as you want it posted, and your direct link in comments.

Option One: Seven Things

A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.
~Lemony Snicket

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me a list of seven things that make a library good. These can be real or imagined, physical or intangible. Have fun with it. As always, explanations are welcome, but not obligatory.

Option Two: Pick Three

The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.
~Carl Sagan

Pick at least three of the following words, and build a piece of writing around them. The form is up to you: poem, scene, flash-fic, essay, or general blog entry. (As always, you can pluralize, change tense, or alter the part of speech, if necessary.)

civilization, culture, extracted, history, insight, knowledge, support, tiring

Option Three: Can You Picture That?
Use the the following photo to inspire a piece of writing in any form (poetry, prose, whatever).
(Please remember to copy the image to your own server, and include the photo credit when it is known.)

Option Four: Poetry

The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple where literary incense must be burned or where one’s devotion to the bound book is expressed in ritual. A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas – a place where history comes to life.
~Norman Cousins

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about devotion expressed in ritual.

Option Five: Fiction

What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians were reposing here as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odor of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of the sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.
~Charles Lamb

Using the above quotation as your inspiration, write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving an old library.

Option Six: Timed Writing

Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark…. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed.
~Germaine Greer

Take nine minutes (use all nine, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of libraries.
This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome.

Don’t forget to comment here with your name, the title of your piece, the selected option number, and the direct link to it.

Happy Writing, and Happy Book-browins

Option One: Timed Writing

When I was a kid, we had 9 planets
and they were all in a neat line to the right of the Sun
(which was just a big slice of yellow)
and we liked it that way!

And Mars had canals
(and maybe ancient cities and certainly some simple vegetation),

Venus was a swamp full of dinosaurs
and exotic plants,

Mercury roasted on one side
and froze on the other all the time,
except for this Twilight Zone area on its terminator
where some kind of life
could exist.
But otherwise
it probably looked just like Earth’s Moon.
You know, with all those craters that came from volcanic eruptions.
~ Larry Klaes

Take eleven minutes (use all eleven, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of when you were a kid.
This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome.

Option Two: Seven Things

“…my father replies that we are made to live here.
We need air to breathe,
water to drink,
we suffocate without air and water:
so why go (into space)?”

“For the same reason
that makes us bring children into the world.

Because we’re afraid of death and darkness,
and because we want to see our image reflected
and perpetuated to immortality.

We don’t want to die,
but death is there,
and because it’s there we give birth to children
who’ll give birth to other children and so on to infinity.

And this way we are handed down to eternity.
~ Ray Bradbury, as recounted by Oriana Fallaci, in If the Sun Dies

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me seven things that represent your legacy to the future. These can be real or imagined, physical or intangible. Have fun with it. As always, explanations are welcome, but obligatory.

Option Three: Pick Three

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

~John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Pick at least three of the following words, and build a piece of writing around them. The form is up to you: poem, scene, flash-fic, essay, or general blog entry. If you want to be really daring, write in the style of Milne. (As always, you can pluralize, change tense, or alter the part of speech, if necessary.)
air, burning, craft, eagle,sanctity, space, surly, trespass

Option Five: Poetry

these are the laws of physics
immutable as those of Medes & Persians:

you, frailness of flesh & skin
wrapped in only blueprints & hope
to plunge through furnace of plasma
burning, blasted, luminous beyond mach-molten:
torn molecules, pink & purple,
cremating you as sati to the sky.

if all goes well, you shall fly
as a butterfly bolted to a bullet.
if not, your only grave shall be
Schlieren lines across a shocked sky.

to strangers,
your death shall be as beautiful as fireworks.
but to those who knew you:
grief.

they vanished
became sky:
a rain of metal tears
upon the land.

breaking,
that contrail became cenotaph:
a wreath we laid
on our voyage to worlds.
~ Keith Gottschalk

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about breaking the laws of physics

Option Six: Fiction

We sail onboard space station “Alpha”
Orbiting high above Earth, still in night
Traveling our destined journey
beyond realm of sea voyage or flight
A first New Year is upon us
Eight strikes on the bell now as one
The globe spins below on its motion
Counting the last thousand years done.
15 midnights to this night in orbit
A clockwork not of earthly pace
Our day with different meaning now
In this, a new age and place
We move with a speed and time
Past that which human hands can tell
Computers programmed-like boxes
Where only thoughts’ shadows dwell

~ William Shepherd, from the log of the ISS Alpha 1, January 1, 2001.

Using the above quotation as your inspiration, write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving celebrating the turn of the year…in Space.

Don’t forget to comment here with your name, the title of your piece, the selected option number, and the direct link to it.

Happy Writing, and Happy Stargazing

1. Cuppa Joy, by Carl
2. Let Us Have Cake, by Bobbi

1. Anticipation’s Desire, by J.C. Montgomery
2. Café Writing: Anticipate, by Floreta
3. I Swing Closer, by The Lightbearer
4. Anticipation, by Bobbi

1. Bear, by James Steerforth
2. Star Child and Azure Moon, by Lissa
3. My Mama Done Told Me, by Miss Meliss

1. Journey, by Anu

1. Images, by Jeeves
2. Caterpillar Cub, by Tiel Aisha Ansari
3. Bear Haiku, by A~Lotus
4. Café Writing June Project, by Mrs. Shields

1. The Game of the Friend, by Tiel Aisha Ansari

Thank you all for your lovely words. New prompts will be posted shortly.

The actual Pooh (and friends) today.

From the moment I was first introduced to Winnie the Pooh as a child, I was entranced as much by the story as by the author’s use of language. As I grew older, I was given books of A. A. Milne’s poetry, which is equally enchanting. For the very late May/June Project, I therefore ask you to indulge me in this celebration of A. A. Milne. I think you’ll find that he has much to offer adult readers, just as he always had much to offer children.

This project will be open until June 14th, or so.

Option OneFiction

The Queen said,
“Oh!”
And went to
His Majesty:
“Talking of the butter for
The Royal slice of bread,
Many people
Think that
Marmalade
Is nicer.
Would you like to try a little
Marmalade
Instead?”
~A. A. Milne, “The King’s Breakfast”

Using the above quotation as your inspiration, write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving breakfast.

Option Two: Timed Writing

“Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best — ” and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.
~A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Take seven minutes (use all seven, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of anticipation.
This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome.

Option Three: Seven Things

James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
“Mother,” he said, said he:
“You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me.”
~A. A. Milne, “Disobedience”

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me seven things your parents often told you, when you were a child.. Alternatively, give me, seven naughty things you did as a child.You’re not required to explain the items in your list, but it’s more fun for readers if you do.

Option Four: Pick Three

Then he began to think of all the things Christopher Robin would want to tell him when he came back from wherever he was going to, and how muddling it would be for a Bear of Very Little Brain to try and get them right in his mind. “So perhaps,” he said sadly to himself, “Christopher Robin won’t tell me any more,” and he wondered if being a Faithful Knight meant that you just went on being faithful without being told things..
~A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Pick at least three of the following words, and build a piece of writing around them. The form is up to you: poem, scene, flash-fic, essay, or general blog entry. If you want to be really daring, write in the style of Milne. (As always, you can pluralize, change tense, or alter the part of speech, if necessary.)
bear, brain, faithful, going, muddling, perhaps, sadly, wherever, wondered

Option Six Poetry

“Let’s frighten the dragons.” I said to Pooh.
“That’s right,” said Pooh to Me.
“I’m not afraid,” I said to Pooh,
And I held his paw and I shouted , “Shoo!
Silly old dragons!” – and off they flew.
“I wasn’t afraid,” said Pooh, said he,
“I’m never afraid with you.”
~A. A. Milne, “Us Two”

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about a real or imaginary best friend

Don’t forget to comment here with your name, the title of your piece, the selected option number, and the direct link to it. Please note that comments from new participants or with more than one link are held for manual approval, and may not show up immediately.

Happy Writing!

1. The Sound of Rain, by Rahul
2. Weather Saga, by Jeeves
3. Urban Perspicacity, by sister AE
4. Echoes, by Destinee Weathers
5. To Rain or Not To Rain, by Gemma
6. It Rains on a Spring Evening, by Cavaliere
7. Tiny Sprouts, by Bobbi
8. Weather Means More, by Rebecca Reid
9. National Poetry Month Farewell, by Linda

   Ann Nickerson

* ~ * ~ *
Option Two:Fiction

1. Reformation, by J.C. Montgomery
2. Twilight in the Garden, by James Steerforth
3. The Little Meadow, by Bobbi
4. Alone in the Garden, by The Light Bearer

1. Panoramic View of My Heart, by A~Lotus
2. My Kitchen Garden, by Bobbi
3. It is Written That…, by James Steerforth

1. Seven of my Guilty Pleasures, by The Light

   Bearer

2. Seven Guilty Pleasures, by Ayesha
3. 7 Guilty Pleasures, by Bobbi

1. Garden Writing, by Becca
2. Never-ending Spring, by J.C. Montgomery
3. My Wild Garden, by Bobbi

1. Come On, Baby, by Destinee Weathers

Thank you all for your lovely words. New prompts will be posted shortly.

Thank you for your continued participation.

Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.
~Marcelene Cox

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about weather meaning more

It is good to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark so that all its shy presences may haunt you and possess you in a reverie of suspended thought.
~James Douglas, from Down Shoe Lane

Using the above quotation as your inspiration, write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving being alone in a garden.

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, from Mosses from an Old Manse

Take fifteen minutes (use all fifteen, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of the process of creation.

This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome.

Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity.
~Lindley Karstens

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me seven of your favorite guilty pleasures. You’re not required to explain the items in your list, but it’s more fun for readers if you do.

Garden writing is often very tame, a real waste when you think how opinionated, inquisitive, irreverent and lascivious gardeners themselves tend to be. Nobody talks much about the muscular limbs, dark, swollen buds, strip-tease trees and unholy beauty that have made us all slaves of the Goddess Flora.
~Ketzel Levine

Pick at least three of the following words, and build a piece of writing around them. The form is up to you: poem, scene, flash-fic, essay, or general blog entry. If you want to be really daring, write a love letter, instead.

beauty, daring, inquisitive, irreverent, limbs, opinionated, strip-tease, unholy, waste

Don’t forget to leave a comment with your name as you wish it to be posted, the direct link to your piece, and the option number.

Thanks! And happy writing!

1. Enough of Love, by Little Wing
2. It’s Not What It Looks Like, by James Steerforth
3. Bang! Bang!, by Bobbi
4. He Was Nice, by The Light Bearer

If I did have an honest — or dishonest — desire to kiss just one or two people, I might — but I couldn’t want to — my mouth is yours.
~Zelda Fitzgerald (in a love letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald)

1. Others, by Ofira Sephiroth
2. L’Agent Provacateur, by Carl Colaco
3. Vessel, by Rob Kistner
4. My Life-Saver, by Bobbi
5. Empty Words, by Melanie

What can I tell you by letter? Alas! nothing that I would tell you. The messages of the gods to each other travel not by pen and ink and indeed your bodily presence here would not make you more real: for I feel your fingers in my hair, and your cheek brushing mine. The air is full of the music of your voice, my soul and body seem no longer mine, but mingled in some exquisite ecstasy with yours. I feel incomplete without you.
~Oscar Wilde (in a letter to Constance Wilde)

1. Sending You a Piece of My Heart, by Amercanising Desi
2. The Consequences, by Jenn

…should I draw you the picture of my heart it would be what I hope you would still love though it contained nothing new. The early possession you obtained there, and the absolute power you have obtained over it,leaves not the smallest space unoccupied..
~Abigail Adams (in a letter to John Adams)

1. For Fuzzy: A Picture of My Heart, by Melissa A. Bartell
2. Picture of My Heart, by Becca
3. My Yellow Heart, by Jessie
4. Finger Paints, by sister AE
5. Eat Your Heart Out, by Floreta
6. The Picture of My Heart, by James Steerforth
7. My Heart, by Bobbi
8. A Picture of My Heart, by The Light Bearer

I don’t like it at all. All the Chairs are staring at me in the most frightful way — And there is a Lady on the Mantel piece who has taken a Great objection to me — and I’m awfully scared —

This is no place for a person with a nice cheerful disposition like me — it looks like those parlors in the Novels where they plot things –
~Isadora Duncan (in a letter to Gordon Craig)

1. 7 Unromantic Places We’ve Kissed, by Bobbi

Do not imagine, because you find these lines in your journal that I have been trespassing. You know I have not – and where else shall I leave a love letter? For I long to write you a love-letter tonight.

You are all about me – I seem to breathe you, hear you, feel you in me and of me.
What am I doing here? You are away. I have seen you in the train, at the station, driving up, sitting in the lamplight, talking, greeting people, washing your hands… And I am here – in your tent – sitting at your table.
.
~Katherine Mansfield (in a letter to John Middleton Murray)

1. Untangling the Past, by Jane Doe
2. Good Things Come in Pairs, by Annie McLennon
3. Ex-Varsity, by Tiel Aisha Ansari
4. Love Letter, by Tamy
5. Rants, by Jeeves
6. Unwritten Loveletter, by Leonard Blumfeld
7. Dearest Love, by Becca
8. On Peace, by This Girl Remembers
9. Love Letters, by Janet
10. Dear, by Dreamer

I confess, every single thing each of you writes is like getting a Valentine, every month.
Remember to tag your posts with Café Writing, or link to us in some fashion.

By the way, all of the quotations for this project are taken from actual love letters.

This Project will be live through the end of February. When a new Project opens, the previous one is closed.

If I did have an honest — or dishonest — desire to kiss just one or two people, I might — but I couldn’t want to — my mouth is yours.
~Zelda Fitzgerald (in a love letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about honest or dishonest desires

What can I tell you by letter? Alas! nothing that I would tell you. The messages of the gods to each other travel not by pen and ink and indeed your bodily presence here would not make you more real: for I feel your fingers in my hair, and your cheek brushing mine. The air is full of the music of your voice, my soul and body seem no longer mine, but mingled in some exquisite ecstasy with yours. I feel incomplete without you.
~Oscar Wilde (in a letter to Constance Wilde)

Using the above quotation as your inspiration, write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving something that can’t be said in a letter.

…should I draw you the picture of my heart it would be what I hope you would still love though it contained nothing new. The early possession you obtained there, and the absolute power you have obtained over it,leaves not the smallest space unoccupied..
~Abigail Adams (in a letter to John Adams)

Take nine minutes (use all nine, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of a picture of your heart.

This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome.

I don’t like it at all. All the Chairs are staring at me in the most frightful way — And there is a Lady on the Mantel piece who has taken a Great objection to me — and I’m awfully scared —

This is no place for a person with a nice cheerful disposition like me — it looks like those parlors in the Novels where they plot things –
~Isadora Duncan (in a letter to Gordon Craig)

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me the seven most un-romantic places you’ve kissed your love. Interpret “places” any way you please. You’re not required to explain the items in your list, but it’s more fun for readers if you do. (And yes, I mean “most un-romantic,” and not merely “least romantic.”)

Do not imagine, because you find these lines in your journal that I have been trespassing. You know I have not – and where else shall I leave a love letter? For I long to write you a love-letter tonight.

You are all about me – I seem to breathe you, hear you, feel you in me and of me.
What am I doing here? You are away. I have seen you in the train, at the station, driving up, sitting in the lamplight, talking, greeting people, washing your hands… And I am here – in your tent – sitting at your table.
.
~Katherine Mansfield (in a letter to John Middleton Murray)

Pick at least three of the following words, and build a piece of writing around them. The form is up to you: poem, scene, flash-fic, essay, or general blog entry. If you want to be really daring, write a love letter, instead.

greeting, hands, imagine, leave, letter, people, train, trespassing, washing

Don’t forget to comment here with your name, the title of your piece, the selected option number, and the direct link to it.

Happy Writing, and Happy Valentine’s Day

Don’t be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some.
~John Keats

1. Down the Rabbit Hole, by Bobbi
2. Losing Faith, by Jane Doe
3. Frugal Fusion, by Little Wing
4. Untitled, by Becca
5. Nadir, by Paisley
6. Poem in Draft: Somebody Watching You, by Gautami Tripathy

Option Two Can You Picture That?

1. Haiku, by A~lotus
2. Cardinal Totem, by Bobbi

Option Three Poetry

I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs.
~William Arthur Ward

1. Peace, by Bobbi
2. Wanted: Contralto Solos, by sister AE
3. I Prayed for Peace, by Pretty Prats
4. A Piece of Peace, by Ginger
5. Grace in Autumn, by diatribalArts

Option Four:Fiction

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.
~Erich Fromm

1. Break of Day, by Medhini
2. The Effort Life Implies, by J. C. Montgomery
3. January Project, by Jessie

Option Five: Timed Writing

Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a perpetual succession of miracles rising into view.
~Joseph Addison

1. Words of Passion by Hand, by A~Lotus
2. A Short-Lived Passion, by Rebecca Reid
3. Ice, Ice, Baby, by Melissa A. Bartell

Option Six: Seven Things

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write..
~Pearl S. Buck

1. My Writing Space, by ell
2. My Writing Space: A List of Seven Things, by Rebecca Reid
3. Seven Physical Spaces of Writing, by A~lotus
4. My Writing Space, by Bobbi
5. Seven Things in My Writing Space, by Mike G.
6. Components of my Writing Space, by Ginger
7. Seven Things, by PinkNic
8. Hiding Space, by SlyGly
9. 7 Things, by Tamy
10. Seven Things, by Janet
11. Seven Things, by Bonni
12. Seven Things, by Becca
13. January Prompts: Fresh, by Michelle
14. Desk Set, by Melissa A. Bartell